Long was not dissuaded by the advice of those friends concerned that she would be slimed and chose to run to set an example for her children. Those friends were insightful, but Long was right.

In Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the United States Supreme Court struck down the application of a Texas sodomy statute, 6 to 3, as lacking any rational basis and overruled its prior decision in Bowers v. Hartwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) in the process.

Justice Scalia, in a dissenting opinion joined by both Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas, explained:
"State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowersí validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by todayís decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding.... The impossibility of distinguishing homosexuality from other traditional 'morals' offenses is precisely why Bowers rejected the rational-basis challenge. 'The law,' it said, 'is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.'"

Justice Scalia further stated that "the ground on which the Court squarely rests its holding: the contention that there is no rational basis for the law here under attack" is a "proposition...so out of accord with our jurisprudenceĖindeed, with the jurisprudence of any society we knowĖthat it requires little discussion."

That "little discussion" follows in its entirety.

"The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are 'immoral and unacceptable,' Bowers, supra, at 196Ėthe same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, 'furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual,' ante, at 18 (emphasis addded). The Court embraces instead Justice Stevensí declaration in his Bowers dissent, that 'the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice,' ante, at 17. This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review."

Talk radio star Laura Ingraham and current candidate for United States Senator from New York Wendy Long are Dartmouth graduates, friends and former law clerks to Justice Thomas and in 2010 Ingraham interviewed Long about the California litigation seeking to establish a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, shortly after Chief District Court Judge Vaughn Walker had ruled that California's Proposition 8 violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Ingraham asked Long whether she was surprised by the ruling and Long replied: "...sadly Iím not. This has been a slow motion train wreck that has been unfolding for years, as you said. Go back to Lawrence v. Texas, even before then. It has been unfolding in ugly and graphic detail and it keeps replaying in my mind. We knew this was coming; weíve tried to warn of it for years as weíve had presidents appointing more and more liberal activist judges to the federal bench. Weíve seen it coming down the pike, and here we are now, really on the precipice of losing not only a fundamental building block of a stable society ó that is, one man, one woman marriage ó but we are also on the precipice frankly of losing our right and privilege of self-government that has been ours for 234 years."

Long described the ruling as "the classic, prime example of judicial tyranny...and...a classic example of a revolution devouring its own children."

Long continued: "These are all wrapped in these beautiful principles of the American Revolution, and then the things you talk about and recall in the Obama diaries about Reagan saying that this is a shining city on a hill, itís the best example of freedom in the history of the world, and this American republic, this great experiment, is really being crushed in the name of its principles, just like in France, where we get the expression of the revolution devouring its own children. Because these gay rights activists are invoking these scenes of fairness and trying to crush all opposition, the way these elites do, crush all opposition, its not fair, its not objective."

Long proceeded to explain that the trial had been as flawed as the ruling.

"Whatís incredible to me Ted Olsen [attorney challenging Proposition 8] says that these are wonderful witnesses, and in the clip you played that the court carefully analyzed the wonderful evidence. It was a sham. This was a sham trial, and Iím shocked to hear Ted say that. We already knew that he had betrayed the Constitution in the side that he took in this litigation, but whatís incredible to me is heís now betrayed even the ideals, the high ideals of good litigation, because the witnesses that he put on werenít neutral, scientific experts, they were all hard core culture warriors in the battle for gay rights. They werenít neutral experts, and Judge Walker, as many of your listeners probably know, is not a neutral judge. He is an openly gay jurist who is in a long-term committed relationship and stands to profit both personally and financially from the outcome of this decision. Everything about it, from the witnesses to the judges to the way that this is being presented is completely wrong, and not surprisingly, on its merit as a judicial decision, the opinion is just laughable."

To a constitutional scholar and former Justice Thomas law clerk who believes in the rule of law instead of judicial activism like Long, the opinion was "laughable" ("laughable as a judicial matter" as she elaborated later in the interview) as well as wrong.

Long then commented as follows on the specifics of the decision.

"Judge Walker said, first of all, that there is a fundamental right to same-sex marriage, and there is no rational basis, none at all, not even a shred of the tiniest rational basis, thatís the lowest test in the law for constitutional scrutiny, no rational basis to support the law. Heís clearly wrong.

"First of all, on the fundamental rights point, fundamental rights are rights that are deeply rooted in our nationís history and traditions. Same-sex marriage is not, it just isnít. I think that we have to approach this issue on both sides with sensitivity and care, and be really accurate. I mean there are people, you and I both have friends and loved ones who are gay and care a lot about this. We owe it to everybody on all sides of this to be honest and fair and accurate. Same-sex marriage is not deeply rooted in our nationís history and traditions. It just isnít a fundamental right. And so he has ripped this important policy question about the structure and meaning of marriage from the hands of the people who in our democracy for 221 years have decided it for themselves and he has completely turned his back on millennia of all organized religions and morality who say that this is wrong. Suddenly itís completely fundamental to the American republic to have same-sex marriage. Itís just laughable; itís not good legal analysis.

"The other thing he said was that there is no rational basis to support it. What he said was, 'The evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples.' Moral and religious views. Heís saying that moral and religious views canít possibly be rational. Thatís what heís saying. Itís just unthinkable, itís crazy. And whatís amazing is that somebody like Ted Olsen can come out there and say that this is a respectable judicial decision."

Long deemed the decision "obviously biased and irrational" and Ingraham then asked, "is there anything that you see after going through this 100-plus page opinion that would prevent others in the future, if this ultimately is upheld, from others arguing for other forms of marriage whether itís polygamy, or marrying the Eiffel Tower, as one woman did a couple of years ago, or marrying yourself. I declared myself marriage, by the way, at the beginning of the show. Iím married."

Long replied: "Laura, youíve just asked the perfect question, and that should have been examined more as a legal matter. It wasnít, itís a serious question, itís not a joke. For example, when my mother was very ill, I couldnít get health insurance coverage for her. I would have, I love my mother deeply, I would have married her to get that health insurance coverage. Why canít I? Who says I canít marry my mother? You and I love our dogs. Who says we canít marry our dogs? The rationale ó and itís not to cast any aspersions or to discredit my mother or the dog ó itís simply saying there are no principle distinctions. Thereís no principle distinction to why you and I and five other people canít get married, if we wanted to form a commune and say we are married."

It's no joke when morality is dismissed as irrational and Long so rightly pointed out what Justice Scalia had pointed out--that morally based laws against incest and bestiality and polygamy were as susceptible to being ruled unconstitutional or unconstitutionally applied as the Texas sodomy statute.

In addition to being superbly qualified by education and experience to be a United States Senator, Long is a Catholic convert, a wife, a mother of two, a catechism teacher and a trustee of a Catholic college.

For obvious political purposes, those who cannot refute Long's (and Justice Scalia's) valid legal analysis have resorted to Alinskyite ridicule and charged or insinuated such things as Long yearned to marry her mother and/or her dog to try to discredit her. See the absurd and/or vile comments at www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/wendy-long-gop-senate-gay-marriage-new-york_n_1552636.html.

In her address to the New York State Conservative Party Convention last March, Long related that some of her closest friends had warned her against running, saying "Wendy, don't do it. Politics is a dirty business, and especially in New York. They'll try to ruin your reputation, and they'll make your children cry."

Long was not dissuaded by the advice of those friends concerned that she would be slimed and chose to run to set an example for her children. Those friends were insightful, but Long was right.

Long also is optimistic.

Long concluded that interview by opining as follows what would happen when the California case reached the United States Supreme Court.

"...obviously, the pivotal vote on this as always is going to be Anthony Kennedy, but I have some hope that he might do the right thing. There are some distinctions between this and the Lawrence case. Iím not as doom and gloom as some people about that, because here we have people coming to seek a benefit from society, and thatís what distinguishes this from the Lawrence case.

What distinguishes Long are her traditional American values, brilliance and willingness to fight for those values instead of being intimidated.

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.